What: Public meeting on changes along Oregon Street for the new Smart 101 bus route
When: At noon on Friday
Where: City Hall

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In announcing the start-up of the Smart 101 rapid bus route on Oregon Street as the first leg of Sun Metro’s new generation of rapid transit routes, city officials have said it will serve 5,000 to 7,000 Mexican students from Juarez attending UTEP each day.

But the enrollment of Mexican students attending the University of Texas at El Paso has fallen from 1,854 in 2004 to 1,579 this fall and has never approached 5,000.

No one involved – from Sun Metro or UTEP to the city manager’s office or City Council – can come close to accounting for the numbers that have been used to identify the need for or justify the expense of the new bus line.

That doesn’t mean the route would not serve a large potential ridership consisting of UTEP and El Paso Community College students, medical workers and patients headed to school or the two hospitals and medical offices on Oregon.

There would probably be other riders as well headed to the new Sun Metro terminal now under construction on Glory Road to connect with buses headed up Mesa or elsewhere.

A UTEP faculty member said he believes most of the 1,579 Mexican students UTEP reports actually live in El Paso But, he said, there are several thousand U.S. citizens and legal U.S. residents living in Juarez who cross the border to attend UTEP every day.

The faculty member, who asked not to be named, said he doubts that UTEP officials have sought to count those students or to find out how many would be interested in taking the Smart 101 bus instead of driving.

But the numbers or estimates supporting those groups of potential riders, evidently, do not exist.

Sun Metro’s director, Tim Omick, asserts that the Smart 101 route, with 10-minute wait times between buses and only five stops, will accommodate riders on 3,000 passenger trips a day.

“My understanding is there are about 6,000 students who live in Juarez and go to UTEP,” Omick said. “The important thing is the Smart 101 route is not based solely on students.

“We’re looking at three large destinations: the community college campus, the hospitals and UTEP. The bigger picture is this is the first phase or the beginning of the (bus rapid transit) line that will run from Glory Road to Doniphan.”

Plans for the new route, tentatively scheduled to begin March 9, call for the elimination of all parking and loading zones along the entire length of the heavily used street, from South El Paso to Glory Road soon after Jan. 1.

That is likely to get City Hall in hot water with those who own businesses on Oregon, especially Downtown, apartment building owners and tenants, UTEP students, people who attend events at Haskins Center and others who rely on Oregon Street for parking.

Jim Scherr, owner of the 15-story 1 Texas Tower building that houses Café Central, has stepped forward to say how losing the loading zones would impact him.

“We have three loading zones that are occupied all day long on Oregon and Texas Court, which they have discussed closing. If they take our loading zones, it will close our building,” he said.

Downtown’s Central Business Association and the Greater El Paso Chamber of Commerce have already intervened.

“We only ask that as the city moves forward … you take into consideration the businesses in that area,” Eddie Miranda, director of policy and programs for the chamber’s Government Relations Division, said at Tuesday’s City Council meeting.

At that meeting, the City Council approved the first step in the plan Tuesday by changing the one-way section of Oregon from San Antonio to Arizona to a two-way street.

No one objected to that change, but council members heard from a member of yet another constituency that may be drawn into a fight over the elimination of parking.

Patrick Olszewski, who lives in a three-story apartment building at 1012 N. Oregon, told council members Tuesday there is already a parking crisis in the area.

“If you take away parking, with meters springing up on the side streets, there will absolutely be no place for people to park,” he said. “To take away virtually every parking option we have is not cool.”

City Rep. Beto O’Rourke candidly admits the city’s failure to notify businesses, property owners and residents along Oregon about the loss of loading zones and parking and to involve them in the process.

O’Rourke has also said the Smart 101 route has got to be on Oregon and the parking and loading zone changes will need to be made.

But at Tuesday’s City Council meeting, O’Rourke remarked that there “may be a change to the route to accommodate” businesses.

“Still, the city and City Council are dedicated to a world-class mass transit system,” he added.

City quietly committed to Oregon route in 2004

Jane Shang, the city’s deputy city manager for mobility, said there were reasons for selecting Oregon for the Smart 101 route and not Santa Fe or Mesa, both of which have been mentioned.

For one, the city needs a straight route terminating at the Glory Road terminal.

Plans are for buses with the ability to keep traffic signals green to move quickly between stops at a terminal planned but not yet started at Santa Fe and Third, Franklin Avenue, the community college, the hospital area, UTEP and the terminal at Glory.

For another, the city made a commitment to use Oregon in 2004.

“It’s not accurate to say this was a secret,” Shang said. “This has been on the planning books for years.

“We’re not trying to circumvent any process. If we didn’t get the word out, then we messed up, and I apologize for that. That was not the intent.”

But Shang, who is new to El Paso, didn’t know and could not provide the details of the city’s commitment four years ago.

Sun Metro, through the Metropolitan Planning Organization and at the behest of City Council and city staff on the MPO’s Transportation Advisory Board, initiated plans for the Oregon route that year by laying claim to $4.7 million in federal funds.

The minutes of the March 2004 meeting at which Sun Metro sought and received the MPO’s support for drawing down the $4.7 million describe a different, though similar, project that was to be called the SMART Starter.

“Sun Metro has retained The Goodman Corporation to produce an advanced planning report for the high capacity transit system that Sun Metro calls SMART Starter,” the minutes state. “This report identifies the section between downtown and UTEP as a primary transit link and funding and planning agencies have agreed with this assessment.

“When Sun Metro was looking at the SMART Starter line, they made further refinements that indicate the use of advanced technology, high capacity vehicle (Bus Rapid Transit) instead of the typical rail technology can authorize substantial cost savings. Implementing the BRT in El Paso will allow the implementation of the SMART Starter line from the border to UTEP at approximately the same cost as the Phase I Light Rail Technology from the border to Oregon Street Transit Mall.”

The Oregon Street Transit Mall was the Sun Metro facility at San Jacinto Plaza.

The buses to be used on the Smart 101 have been ordered and the $4.7 million is to pay for street work on Oregon that is to start next September.

The city’s acceptance of the $4.7 million came with the commitment to use Oregon as the transit route and the question is how much flexibility the city might have in making changes to accommodate businesses, apartments, residents and others that would be affected.

“Can we do it with parking and business loading zones mixed in? Shang said. “It would be difficult.”

The Smart 101 line is the first leg of a rapid transit route, the second leg of which that will go up Mesa from Glory Road to Doniphan.

The key is speed and convenience, because those features are what it would take to talk people out of their cars and into buses.

Using Santa Fe, where parking and loading zones have already been eliminated, would mean a series of traffic lights and turns at Yandell where Santa Fe ends.

And using the Mesa Street through Downtown would pose more problems.

“Mesa is terrible,” Shang said. “With all those traffic lights, just think how long it would take to go up the Mesa corridor.”

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To reach David Crowder, write to dcrowder@epmediagroup.com or write (915) 351-0605